I’ve been pondering the afterlife, motivated by a nightly prayer routine that includes the hope that my deceased family members are in Heaven. As a lifelong Catholic and the son of a woman quite literally raised by nuns, praying that loved ones are in Heaven is a thing. The question is: What is Heaven, and by contrast, what is hell?
My suspicions about the afterlife have evolved since the days of daily religion class at St, Cecilia’s Catholic School. No doubt, Sisters Maria, Patricia, and Virginia are giving me the hairy eyeball at the moment. Still, the notion of places above and below doesn’t necessarily track for me—an opinion I share with Bart Ehrman. But we’ll get to him momentarily. The idea of the afterlife seems to make less sense as a schism between good and bad people, and more of a community of souls—perhaps the analogy of a river or ocean of entities swirling together for the most intimate of relationships. Hold on, you say, because the Bible tells us about Heaven and Hell. Besides, there must be a reward for the good and punishment for those unkind, “evil” ones who sided against God. Okay, let’s look at that.
The afterlife started off in the Old Testament as a pretty bleak outcome. I believe the name of the place where the dead went was called Sheol. Jacob in Genesis 37:36 first mentions it when he is told of his son Joseph's death. "I shall go down to my son a mourner unto Sheol. [Note that in the Catholic Bible, it comes up under Genisis 37:35 and Sheol is substituted with “nether world.”] For the most part, Sheol was a place of nothingness—simply the ultimate eternal destination of those who passed. The assumption of the ancient Jews was that you die and into the “pit” you go. It’s neither Heaven nor Hell, it is just where the dead go—oblivion, really. Even later in Psalms, it’s just the grave or pit rather than a place of an afterlife.
Ultimately, though, the Bible reveals that there would eventually be a resurrection of the dead, the faithful having earned what the Book of Daniel (12:2-3, 12:13) mentions as “live forever” while the naughty would suffer in “everlasting horror.” Those are your first signs of Heaven and Hell, reward and punishment, in the Old Testament—that I know of, anyway.
Somewhere between Daniel and the coming of Jesus Christ, the notion of an afterlife evolved. Now, some of that is surely influenced by the nature of the Gentiles, of which many were Greek or heavily influenced by Greece. Consequently, there’d be some assimilation of Greek philosophy into the DNA of the New Testament. Indeed, it’s crucial to the New Testament because Paul was raised a Greek-speaking Jew. And as time wore on, some of that Greek influence—particularly the concept of Hades—worked its way into his thinking. This where we bring back Bart Erhman.
Ehrman examines the question of Heaven and Hell quite a bit and spoke about it on a recent NPR broadcast. He is a distinguished professor of religious studies at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Here’s the rub, however: Although a former altar boy in the Episcopal Church and later a born-again fundamentalist evangelical Christian, Ehrman is now an agnostic atheist. He says he doesn’t really know if there is a superior being in the universe, but he doesn’t believe there is. Ehrman admits he knows nothing, really, nor does he believe in anything. Nevertheless, he is incredibly well versed in scripture and, to be honest, brings a solid foundation of history to the discussion. His only weakness is his lack of faith, or, perhaps, disillusionment.
Nevertheless, Ehrman concurs with my statement that our assumptions about Heaven and Hell come not from the Old Testament; although he takes it a step further and says not even the actual teachings of Jesus Christ. According to Ehrman, Heaven and Hell is an afterthought by the Gospel authors and tempered heavily with an impatience with the Lord’s time frame for bringing the Kingdom of God.
Say what?
First, you have to understand that authors, be they of fiction, nonfiction, or scriptures bring their own viewpoints to the subject matter. No matter how detached one might pretend to be, a little editorial or artistic license works its way in. It’s human nature. And that’s where a little Greek mythos comes into our New Testament picture of the afterlife.
Having been raised in Turkey among a heavy Greek influence (yes, many Greeks lived in Turkey—probably much of the reason for mutual Greco-Turkish consternation), must have introduced Paul to the concept of Hades, that moment where the spirit, the soul, is separated from the body and transported or transmuted to the underworld. It’s in this afterplace where good and bad people split. But hold onto that.
Back to Ehrman who makes two important historical points: One is that there was a brand of Jews he calls the apocalypticists, to which he assigns both Paul and Jesus. Apocalypticists evolved the opinion that suffering in the world is because people sin against God, for which the sinner is punished. Essentially, evil, usually personified in the devil or as Satan, along with his followers, is aligned against God and thereby spawns global misery. This viewpoint began, according to Ehrman, 200 years before Jesus. They believed that God would soon destroy forces of evil, enabling the world to resume its utopia and for those people who were on the side of God—be they alive or dead, with the righteous dead being resurrected. God’s new kingdom would be here on Earth. However, as time went on, it was clear that the end times were, well, not on time. Or, at least, the end times weren’t on the early Christian timeline.
But Jesus said...
Christ taught us that the Kingdom of God is coming. We tend to read that as the end of all time, Judgement Day, the Heavenly Kingdom. Ehrman makes a compelling case that Jesus didn’t so much believe in Heaven as an apocalypticist Jew, not in the separation of soul and body. God will destroy the forces of evil, raise the dead, and those who have been on God's side, especially those who follow Jesus' teachings, will enter the new kingdom here on Earth.
Ehrman says, “They'll be physical. They'll be in bodies. And they will live here on Earth—where the paradise will be. So Jesus taught that the kingdom of God, this new physical place, was coming soon, and those who did not get into the kingdom were going to be annihilated.”
“Please hold.”
When this didn’t happen when everyone, as in early Christians, thought, well, it must be that Jesus was talking a longer calendar. Consequently, Jesus must have meant that the coming of the Kingdom of God is in the afterlife. Thus, Paul concepted that the good would have residence with Christ in Heaven until the end of creation. This launches our idea of Heaven and Hell—continued existence without physical remains. If you’re good—you live in Heaven; if not so good, Hell. Gentiles bought into it because so many were converts were from Greek influences. These were people already accepting of life after death.
What about Revelations? My personal view is that Revelations is an allegory of the battle been early Christianity and the Roman Empire. Although, Revelations tracks with the apocalypticst viewpoint while being wholly counter to a forgiving God. Still, Ehrman makes a compelling point that screwing up for 70 years earning you an eternity or even trillions of years in agony seems pretty extreme.
Then, if Heaven and Hell as we’ve come to know them are seemingly constructs, then what is the afterlife and how does it relate to Heaven and Hell?
Here’s my thinking: If we are indeed imbued with an inherent spirit, intelligence, energy—all comprising the soul, then it is not something snuffed out by physical death. A star explodes and yet its remnants give birth to other stars. In other words, energy is infinite. I genuinely believe we exist beyond the body. Of course, Neil DeGrasse Tyson dismisses this because he asks, “Can you remember before you were born?” No, stupid, because I had not been created prior to conception. My soul had not existed prior to my conception. God may have known me before my creation, but that is only because God is infinite and not bound by linear time.
A sidebar, by the way, God is a very small word trying to encompass something way beyond our understanding. Keep that in mind.
River of dreams
Back to the soul and what happens after death. Imagine the afterlife is a community of souls. Earlier I used the analogy of a river or ocean of entities swirling together for the most intimate of relationships. This began from a film I saw as a boy that really resonated with me—to this day. Houseboat starred Cary Grant playing a character whose estranged wife died, and with whom his three children came to live. In a very cool scene where Grant explains the afterlife to his youngest son struggling to understand death and the loss of his mother, they’re sitting on the side of the houseboat floating on a river. Grant holds up a pitcher of water and says it’s like the boy's Mom, the pitcher is her body, and the water her spirit. He pours the water into the river. The pitcher is empty but where did the water go? That’s like death, Grant explains. Her spirit goes into the universe and a great river. She’s not gone.
It makes sense that all we are and know go into that great ocean of the universe—a community of souls. How intimate is it that our consciousness all intertwine and we genuinely experience communion. That’s not to say there isn’t some degree of punishment. After all, that community could know all that you’ve ever done or thought—know your sins. There would be some separation or rejection from those whom you’ve harmed over time, but then there would be infinite wisdom and forgiveness. Imagine that. Both Heaven and Hell as one, and within that—ultimate forgiveness.
